Look who’s back to lay down the Rules

The Noongar family dubbed the ‘Australian Kardashians’ is returning to TV screens after a successful first season.

Filming will begin in October on a second season of Family Rules, the fly-on-the-wall series that follows the lives of the nine Rule sisters and their mother Daniella, who raised the girls alone after their father died tragically in 2004.

It is expected to air on National Indigenous Television late next year.

Daniella Borg, who lives with her daughters in Western Australia, says she has been overwhelmed and humbled with the response to season one, which aired on NITV early this year.

She says the show seems to have touched a chord with people who are able to relate to the real-life situations she and her girls face.

“I’ve got a lot of personal messages from women experiencing similar situations and also raising children alone,” says Ms Borg, an Aboriginal Indigenous Education Officer at a WA high school.

“That’s really touching. It makes me cry with some of them. Then it makes it all okay that what I’m doing and trying to do, because I’m not perfect by any means and my kids aren’t, but we’re trying the best we can with what we’ve got. We make mistakes and that’s part of life.

“To know that someone else is actually inspired by it and it keeps them moving forward, that’s something I’m touched by.”

Ms Borg says the cameras are once again set to follow the family around for about six months from October.

She says she and her daughters thought carefully about doing a second series.

“It’s not every day someone asks to come and tape you in real-life situations and to share that with people,” she says. “We did say yes. The story is kind of unfinished at the moment.”

Series executive producer and Perth filmmaker Karla Hart, also a Noongar woman, says the Rule family is easy to relate to.

“First and foremost they are a unique family,” she says. “They are a family of nine girls, no brothers, raised by a woman who is very unique but also (it’s about) so many of our aunties, our mothers, our sisters, our nieces who are out there doing what they have to do to get the job done and get their kids raised in a way that gives them opportunities they didn’t get when they were younger.

“It’s a great look at an urban Indigenous family that are still very connected to family and culture. It’s fresh television.

“I’m so proud of it. Working with this family … they are just beautiful people. What you see is what you get. They deserve to be in the spotlight because they showcase not only their own strength and resilience but the strength and resilience and humour of our community as well.”

In an interview before the first series, Ms Borg said she was aware of the comparisons with the Kardashians — the first family of US reality television — but insists the two families aren’t similar.